Med Term Rental Advice??

Question

I am in Berkeley, CA with a med term furnished rental but I'm having issues getting it rented and I have no idea why. It's a gorgeous loft with beautiful furniture, lighting, great location, and below market rate but I still can't find a tenant. It's 750 sqft and I'm trying to get a tenant to pay 2750 which will just barely cover all the monthly expenses and utilities. Ideally, I feel like the space is worth 3400 a month but I have significantly lowered the rate because I wasn't getting ANY bookings :(

I've posted listings on furnished finder, airbnb, zillow, and vrbo. It's been on the market for 2 months now. My photos are professional. I can send photos to anyone who would like to see but I don't really want to post this link publicly because of the obvious desperation of my post lol... Does anyone know why I might be having issues getting this rented? Do I just give up?

Kimberly Gopp · Answer

Here are some hopefully helpful tips and a few questions.

Are you a" short" term rental or are you a "mid" term rental? How does an owner run both simultaneously?  Annually, Does the higher nightly rate but higher vacancy rate push off the highest operating income? Does the Mid term monthly - little to no vacancy rate push off the highest OI? Pick a lane/niche and stay the course. Don't give up!A travel nurse or relo'ing resident, student/intern can't rent from you if your calendar has a night or two locked up in the middle of their desired stay. Hope that makes sense. more on this below.

ZILLOW- I have found paying the $29 fee to Zillow for a premium listing is worth it. Your listing placement will jump to the top. Refresh the ad periodically. Content is a big factor also. Are you an owner listing all the NO's... The Rules... its a turn off. Be accommodating, welcoming with your ad. What's the biggest value for your resident? Flexibility and solving their individual needs/logistics.

Are you able to use photoshop or an app to add some keywords to your pics. Allows your value to stand out.  FULLY FURNISHED" "Utilities Included" attached is an example of mine. It's tough to filter these furnished units out on Zillow and if you don't pay that fee - your listing may not even come up when a potential resident is even using "Furnished" under keywords search option. Paying for premium listing is worth it. If someone locks in rental before listing expires out. You may have some days left in ad - just push out the availability date to when it is opening again to attract those potentials that are planning way ahead. Listing goes away I believe after 90 days? Most of our rentals have desired move in dates of just 2 weeks out. In most cases we do not hold a unit for someone nor do we allow a move in date reserved mths out ( like airb) unless we have a confirmed hard move out date. That would be a travel nurse. After 13 weeks and then their renewal of another 13 weeks.. you know have a good solid move in date for your next resident. Can you waive pet fees, if pet friendly and advertise no pet fee. No other fees..Large pets? Who the heck will rent to residents with 3 large dogs? We do. Damage deposit will cover any pet damage. Find out their problem and solve it ...they will rent from you. It's not always about the $. It's who can accommodate our unique situation, everyones is different. The hospitality element plays a huge role. FF - I am very active on here. I would have said" refresh your calendar at least every 3 days" but, if you are syncing your calendar with your airb listing..well read on

I was immensely disappointment when speaking with a rep from FURNISHED FINDER to hear that FF allows for Airb listings to sync their calendar with FF. At midnight every nite your calendar will automatically refresh for you. Disappointing for many reasons. But not going on that rant right now. Any reps from FF that would like to discuss happy to do so. It's hurting our potential residents trying to find a mid term rental when the calendar has availability but for only a week or so. Residents come to FF to find a longer term stay. If they wanted a week or one month they can go to airb and prepay for their stay. It frustrates them. They call me and tell me this. They are frustrated. I listen, I acknowledge, I solve their problem and get a resident! I wish a banner would call out theses dual types of listings but I would really rather them not allow for Airbnb listings on FF site and stay in there on lane as well. So there was a short rant after all. FACTS

Set FF leads filters to UNMATCHED leads also. Some people can push up the budget because they find some other value you are offering. I will dump the rate if it does not have another resident waiting to move in. Better to take less cash flow than be in the hole on the unit. Reach out to un matched leads with your value. Once you get more units you can offer to stay at one to wait for other property they desired to come available. Our residents stay 6+ mths but again we are NOT on airb we are a true mid term rental. I can share our link on FF with our profile of units. Some are marked not available for a while ( these are nesters - I call them - for various reasons they are just hunkered down and happy with their units and our free southern hospitality. A snap shot of some our residents currently... An executive chef - he travels with a ballet company and feeds them - A family in before school started and leaves when school ends for their out of state move. USPS contract workers building a robot to sort mail, Travel Nurses, Professionals relocating, A medical group rotating out their new surgical Dr. residents for training in jax  :) A husband of 33 years that got pushed out by his wife - hoping to go back.. but he is still renting from us ...yikes - no judgment! Every year off season I get a baseball player to comes to stay to be close to his son. The need for mid term rentals is there. It takes a hustle and some hospitably but totally do able. Flexibility is the ability you need to embrace. Also, get leads on the phone as a first method of contact if you can. Conversations with a person land so much better than a message thru FF.Also it is helpful to know that most Corporate Housing companies or Insurance Agencies that are trying to find housing for their customers and reach out to you, they do finds leads on FF.  they will not accept your listings as an option if you have it also listed on airb. This weekend I have a family moving in to one of our properties due to their own home got some major water damage inside. The Insurance company asked if we were an airb property as they will not house their customers in airb listings. So another good reason to pick a lane.

Loft? Is this a separate private unit, anything shared? Happy to review your ad just send the link to me directly. What are the terms? We offer our residents the option to terminate their agreement with just 2 weeks notice. This offers a great value for them.

Greg San Martin · Answer

I live in Berkeley.  You said "tenant," singular.  Assuming yours is a 1 BR, $2,750 seems high even in the best neighborhoods.

The good news is that in cities like Berkeley with aggressive rent control, there is always a shortage of available rental units (the rent board bureacrats constantly find ways to perpetuate the housing shortage upon which their jobs depend).

April is when new UC students begin to aggressively look for August housing.  They stay 3 to 5 years.  Not exactly medium term but something to consider.

Just remain wary of the potential consequences of operating in an anti-landlord jurisdiction: vacancy taxes, potential vacancy control, inability to remove deadbeat tenants, etc.

Coincidentally, Jesse Vasquez posted "why your MTR isn't renting" on YouTube yesterday.

JV video on why your MTR isn't renting

Kimberly Gopp · Answer

CRAIG-LIST -it works for me. Filter out the scammers.  Present your self as a real person offering a great value. Depending on volume of postings will depend on how many and how often you need to renew your listing. but for my area of CL. Post in Temporary/sublet housing and Apartments/Housing for rent categories. You can do 2 in each category per email. Do 1 ad in morning then 1 in evening. Next day 2 days repeat this. You will need to use another email for the last two ads. Then each morning and night check to see if need to renew listing. The CL mobile app is helpful for this.

Last inquiry from a CL ad was a mom - sounded stressed as dealing with the logistic nightmare of relocating her family across county. I answer call. She says "Hey, my daughter sent me this link from CL to this home and I am calling to see if this is a real house for rent or if it is a scam.  Love those calls!  We connected and I calmed her fears. Unfortunately her "unknown" desired move in date for the relo isn't ideal for me to lock her in to a property. However, I know she will call me 1st when she gets that desired move in date firmed up. Good luck!

Jamie Banks · Answer

Don't sell yourself short on pricing. We've all been there where a property is vacant and we start lowering the price but I don't recommend this. I would do some research on comparable properties to figure out the best pricing.

Are you actively updating your listing? On Furnished Finder and Airbnb I recommend tinkering part of your listing whether its the listing description, updating the availability date or swapping out the first and second photo to help the algorithm.

I don't operate in California but in the markets I currently operate in on the east coast we're coming off of slow season. Being vacant may be from seasonality.

Dexter Crawford · Answer

I had this issue in Chicago once. In the furnished rental space, we charge a premium because our units are furnished. The area I was in was a heavy medical and college district.  And I noticed that many of the unfurnished units were offered with a month to month lease... the kids would get cheap furniture that they didn't care about tearing up and giving away when they were done. For them it was no big deal to furnish an unfurnished place. In areas like that, you make your money on nightly. Price wise, I was competing with the unfurnished rental market. I ended up giving up that place. I didn't want the hassle of nightly rental.  It feel outside of my scope of my business model.

A few suggestions:

- List on CHBO corporatehousingbyowner.com

- target a niche market like students, travel nurses, flight crews (if you're anywhere near an airport), and construction teams

- if you have 2 - 3 bedrooms, explore renting monthly by room - roomies.com and bungalow.com; you'd be surprised at how many people are on a budget and will roommate with strangers.  It's definitely a "thing" and I've made some good money this way

These suggestions should get you where you need to be.

Vicente Hernandez · Answer

Hey Rosemary, I have been a leasing agent for for a little over 3 years now here in Chicago. Furnished rentals are very hard to work with in my opinion. The tenant pool is definitely cut to a fraction and many applicants you can find all have different lease time frames. Personally finding international college students or traveling medical professionals was my go to. Chicago is a very healthcare friendly city so finding traveling nurses wasn't hard. In your case maybe contacting an agent that has connections with the universities may help.

Zachary Deal · Answer

I think @Kimberly Gopp has some great advice with the craigslist suggestion. I know Craigslist is very popular for renters and landlords in SF so I assume the same would be true with Berkley. It seems like it is somewhat regional but in the areas it is popular it works well. Happy to look at the listing if you want to PM me directly as well!

Bora Moon · Answer

Wondering how you are doing now! Did you secure more bookings? Did you turn LTRN?

Bonnie Low · Answer

It's really hard to say without seeing your property. I understand the hesitancy to post your listing but for anyone to evaluate it honestly, they'd need to see it. There have been some good suggestions here already. Marketing, photos, pricing, competition. I'm sure you're doing all those things. I know your market and know that $2750 isn't bad for a space in Berkeley, but it depends on the space. Is it a shared home? How many beds/baths? Parking? How clean and safe is the neighborhood? @Jamie Banks and I have recently launched a virtual meetup for MTR operators called The MTR Connect. We have a weekly call and one of the features is called Share My Space. This is an opportunity to share your property on a live call to ask questions, get feedback and suggestions and have others help troubleshoot it for you. You might benefit from that. Let me know if you'd like to participate and I'd be happy to send you a link. We're keeping the group small for now.